There was another great turnout at last week’s Social Media Breakfast 8, with around 90-plus people joining us at Ryles Jazz Club in Cambridge. SMB8 was all about video and using video to engage and build communities.
The lineup for the panel discussion part of the breakfast gathering was:
The presenters repeatedly mentioned authenticity when discussing why video is one of the fastest-growing media used in social media community building. It’s hard to fake being genuine and transparent when trying to connect through a visual medium. People can see through scripted, over-produced, and controlled messaging. They want to be engaged through raw, honest, passionate and creatively captured and shared moments on issues that they connect with and interest them. It’s important to remember, first and foremost, that consumers and communities are not demographics, markets or influence groups – they’re people.
Thanks again to Rob Lane and Overlay.TV for sponsoring the breakfast. (Want to create your own overlay for a video? Here’s how you do it.)
For a nice synopsis for each of the presentations, please check out Just Kate’s blog post.
Links to online conversations and mentions of SMB8
Also, Len Edgerly, one of New England’s finest podcasters, featured SMB8 in the most recent episode of his Audio Pod Chronicles podcast: “Breakfast of Videos.”
What’s next?
We’d like to keep the conversation going. How are you using or seeing video used to engage and building communities? Share examples of great works and good deeds in this area with us.
And of course, independent of the tools or media, what other community-building initiatives are you seeing that inspire and interest you? There are enough examples and time spent on programs gone wrong, so let’s focus on sharing initiatives done right.
Share your examples in the comments section below.
Canada’s first Social Media Breakfast in Ottawa, the Nation’s Capital, is now one for the books! The inaugural Breakfast, sponsored by Overlay.TV, was held this past Tuesday. Over 60 guests braved the early hour and sauna-like weather to gather for a morning of social media talk over coffee at the headquarters of Ramius Corporation.
June’s Social Media Breakfast #4 highlighted social media releases, as well as small businesses utilizng social media. Emily Joyner gave a quick presentation about social media releases, during which she showed the group the standard template for social media releases. Other notable examples of social media releases include Coca-Cola’s® SMR for the Virtual Thirst Contest and Ford’s® Digital Snippets about their selection of vehicles.
Dave Barger’s presentation highlighted the social media uses small businesses could employ to help reach their target audience. By using Shashi Bellamkonda’s example of “Small Business and Social Media,” Dave gave the group tips and various ideas for utilizing social media to better connect with their audiences.
Last Saturday, 24th of May 2008 was Social Media Breakfast: Singapore 2! The attendee list jumped to about 60 people, of which about 40% were there for the very first time.
As we’re still getting used to the idea of a social media event here in Singapore, there were no presentations or speakers, but ideas of a small round-table discussion are being thrown about for the third installation of SMB.
The crowd was a great mix of students, PR executives, casual bloggers, entrepreneurs and the curious.
For Immediate Release’s Singaporean correspondent, Michael Netzley, also covered the event in FIR #348
A full rundown of blog posts and pictures can be found here, and a video from the breakfast is below.
Education was the word of the morning for May’s Social Media Breakfast Memphis. Presenters highlighted the value and importance of continuing education to keep up with the trends in technology, as well as how educational institutions are utilizing social media.
Joan McGrory, Ph. D, with Southwest Tennessee Community College, explained to the group the growing benefits of continuing education, especially in the realm of technology. While Bryan Berretta, of Lausanne Collegiate School, showed the ways their students and teachers are utilizing social media tools such as social bookmarking, blogs and private social networks to share information and stay connected. Bryan’s presentation can be found here on SlideShare.net.
Both presentations sparked interesting discussions on what social media trends are most effective in various realms. What are your thoughts about connecting social media with education?
Some 90 social media experts, enthusiasts, and newbies packed the Ryles Jazz Club in Inman Square, Cambridge last Thursday morning for Boston’s Social Media Breakfast 7.
The event featured four short presentations on the topic of “hiring and getting hired in the Web 2.0 world,” as well as Christopher S. Penn’s demo of his “power tools” for LinkedIn.
Big thanks to Owen Mack from coBRANDiT VIDEO for recording the main presentations.
SMB Twin Cities 2 was a great success! While we gathered at a venue that was admittedly too small for the group, we had tremendous turnout! We had somewhere north of twenty SMBer’s show up despite the nasty early April weather, and another 18-20 join us remotely via the video feed.
Over good coffee and cramped space, the conversation flourished. The group again had ideas of what they wanted to talk about, which I’m glad to see. These “organic” conversations are much more informative and enjoyable than a planned agenda could provide.
Topics the group touched on are at the core of social media, including the question “What is Social Media?”. No, we didn’t get that definition completed for those interested, though someone suggested we lock the door until we did define it!
We talked about Twitter, what it means by Hugh MacLeod leaving it, privacy and how to protect the anonymity for those that need it. Comparison of the professionalism of LinkedIn vs. the personal aspects of Facebook. How to introduce social media tools to those less acquainted with the concepts. What about the rise of shared feeds and services like FriendFeed, Cullect, and similar services. Finally, there was real interest in how to filter all these information sources so it was easier for a person to keep on top of it all.
One of the really fun points at our meetup this week was to break the news of Seesmic’s new Customer Service and Community Support person: Thomas Knoll (dydimustk on Twitter). Keep an eye out for Thomas on Seesmic (dydimustk)!
Some lessons learned for the meetups themselves are that we need larger spaces, WiFi is a necessity, a live video feed worked well and was much appreciated by remote SMBer’s. Also, bridging the conversation disconnect between the remote viewers and the discussion in the room is needed.
Overall the SMB group in the Minneapolis & St. Paul area is growing fast, our social network (http://smbmsp.ning.com) is now over 40 members and doesn’t show signs of stopping. We’ll be enhancing the meetup and are already setting up the May event.
Thank you to everyone who was able to take time out of their busy day and make it over to the meetup, or to tune in online. See you in May!
More than 80 members of Boston’s social media community came together last Tuesday morning for a social media breakfast co-hosted by Jeff Pulver and me at the S & S Restaurant in Cambridge.
While there was no specific agenda, Jeff did distribute his personal social-networking toolkits to everyone, ensuring the gathering was … social! He also hinted that the “Breakfast with Jeff Pulver (and friends)” series he is hosting around the world might lead to a book.
“Analytics” was the keyword of the morning for our second Social Media Breakfast. Bob Hazlett and Emily Joyner discussed social media analytics, varying in topics from Facebook and Google to RSS Feeds and Social Bookmarking.
All attendees, even the newbies, participated at a high level, whether it was exchanging a new idea, bringing forth questions or admitting when they needed a little more explanation of a new tool or social network! The constant conversation and the open-flow of new ideas represent the spirit of the un-conference, which is highly encouraged at the breakfasts. We look forward to next month’s meeting and, as always, are hoping to keep the conversation wheels turning in our online communities!
OK so I like the whole Social Media Breakfast idea so much that I decided to try and put one together with less than a week’s notice during a recent trip to the Phoenix area.
These types of events are hidden gold mines for marketers looking to get an understanding of these new technologies. The reason why they are like finding gold is they end up being conversations among peers some with excellent experience and depth, others with just plenty of curiosity about doing something new and challenges to address. They are usually the marketing types that have the capability to match the technology to the challenge in a business or non-profit setting.
Just to re-cap the March 14 event, Heather Herr otherwise known as MsHerr on Twitter and Miles Comer a.k.a. Tankilo on twitter shared their projects, ideas, and yes, frustrations about social media.
Miles is a tech support employee for a wireless company helping keep their computer networks in the retail stores running. He is also trying to get greater participation in his company’s wiki related to service and trouble shooting issues. My take is the key to his challenge is getting just a couple of examples where someone found a solution to a problem on the wiki that saved hours and you’ve got the makings for a Wiki advocate. Yes it is a catch-22, you need contributions in order to get solutions, so I’ve put some ideas for greater wiki participation on the Provident Partners social media blog.
Heather has an interesting story. She is a partner in Experience Studio a branding firm in Arizona. She is also using Twitter to facilitate conversation for the Phoenix Art Museum using http://twitter.com/PhxArtYC While the main objective is to stimulate interest in the arts among potential young collectors our breakfast conversation led to the idea of not limiting the geography. Art is enjoyed the world over, Phoenix is a popular travel destination, and greater conversation on the web has limitless potential across geographies so tap into the topic at all levels. You can hear part of our breakfast conversation with Albert Maruggi reporting on the social media breakfast in Scottsdale March 14, 2008
